Ver.1.000 - Published Guide
Ver 1.001 - Edited a few minor details.
- Included warning in the intro
- Added more info on yorick

If you are looking for a tanky/dps build for yorick then this guide is not for you.

This quick guide focuses on yorick doing damage and taking out squishies in a matter of seconds. Sure he can be built like olaf or nasus (off tank) but I believe he won't be as good as a teammate if he just go straight out damage/carry build. With this build yorick will be squishy but I have lived through 3 vs 1 where in the end I am left with one life bar but using E and the life steal from Bloodthirsty saves me.

Okay so Yorick.... wow. First time I looked at him I thought oh wow, this is like an AD counterpart of Mord mixed with Sona. It is true that it says in the tooltip that Yorick is a tanky dps but I would not say that Yorick is tanky at all, unless of course geared that way but I would still not recommend it.

The Reason why some yoricks fail and some don't

I have noticed that the yorick players with the recommended build or build that have mana in them usually tend to suck and their team mates would compare their Yorick to my yorick build.

What are they doing wrong? It may be too much to say that they are wrong maybe they are just doing it wrong but it seems to me that Yorick should not rely on his minions for damage or even care about whether they live long for that matter. I don't see his minions as his main weapon, I just see them as stat boosters. With that in mind I don't try to have 10 thousand mana or to have 4K HP. Instead I use them together with Yorick's Passive so that I get more out of it for that few seconds his minions are up.

Then again I could be wrong, but I have tried different builds and like I said this build is the one that worked for me, as a carry of course.

The runes are pretty self explanatory.

Reds for armor penetration, best choice for Yorick imo
Yellow I go with 3 mana regen and 6 armor, just a personal preference on my part.
As for the blue or glyphs, I stick with cool down reduction runes so that I can easily juggle between my skills.

Quints, I usually go with 25 armor penetration for my AD characters but for Yorick I make an exception, I use quint strength runes to get +6 ad bonus right off the bat. Why? No reason really but since it takes a while to get those plus AD items then we can sure use any help we can get for our skills right?

I see a lot of people go 9 - 0 - 21 with yorick or 21 - 0 - 9 but for me I use 9 - 21 - 0 Just for personal preference. I find that I survive more early game with this build than the 9 -0 -21 mastery build.

Skilling Order ahhhh.

I believe the best way to skill Yorick is to level all 3 skills in a semi-equal way. Kind of like how one would skill Fiddle Stick. Have i tried it? Nope I always change my mind thinking it would fail. But the reason I state this is because with yorick, the best way to use him is not by unleashing all of his minnions right away. Sure you get a nice blast damage but after 5 seconds all of your minions are dead and you are on 8 second cool down for all of them, now what?

That is why when using your skills, It is wiser to time it or having 1.5 second interval between using each skill, at level 18 with cool down reduction, if done correctly, you can almost always have all 3 minions up with only seconds of delay, but of course that is mana expensive.

ANYWAY

Ive seen a few yorick guides and they all max different things first, i've seen the slow ghoul (w) being maxed first, then the ad/+ speed (q) second and lastly leech (e). I've done it the other way with E first, Q second and W last.

All I can say is it does not really matter that much, It matters to how you play Yorick. If you want Damage I suggest maxing Q first alongside W/E, if you want to farm better, then max W first. Maxing W first also gives you better chance to catch up fleeing enemies for lower cd on W.

Lastly, I've played with maxing my E first, it is good for harassing but when it comes to damage output, ehhhhh... also better survivability but over all I wouldn't max this first unless laning against ranged enemies.

Whichever order you decide to skill yorick, one thing that you should level first at level one is W or the slow ghoul cause it helps get that first blood ;).

There are two items you can buy in the beginning depending on how you play.

Defensive playstyle? Buy Doran's Shield first
Aggressive play style? Buy Doran's sword.

Early Game:or
Mid Game:
or if Fed Early:
End Game:
Other situational Items:
More AD?
More Survivability?

So I've played Yorick as many different builds (including different item buid in combination with different mastery builds and rune builds) and I find that straight up AD dps is the way to go with yorick.

Off tank and tanks: high survivability but can easily be ignored by enemies due to somewhat low damage output.

Jungle yorick: When I first saw the description for Yorick I thought to myself omg, he can probably be a good jungler. I tried... twice... maybe my set up was wrong, maybe my route was wrong idk but I was just not leveling fast enough. And by fast enough I mean leveling at the same pace as your two solo lanes. It was not bad but I found myself usually a level or two behind. I will try a third time with the skill priority of W and E this time around and will post an update.

Some Yorick Moves:

Use W to not only block blockable enemy skillshot but also to facecheck bushes.

When chasing an enemy, sometimes using Q on a minion helps you get that kill. Once you get in close enough just W and E away assuming the enemy is low on hp.

You should always start your attack with W to slow the enemy, Followed by Q just in case they start to run away, also by starting with W, if they engage you in battle and decide to run away, your W will be off CD (hopefully) by the time they start running away from you.

So in general: W . Q . E . W . Q
. meaning wait a few moments.

Immediately unleashing all your Ghouls is only advisable if you are sure that you will kill the enemy with that burst.

THE ULTIMATE

Just to be clear, Using your ultimate on a dying team mate won't save them, it just gives them a few extra second to stay in combat.

With that said, use it on your most valued teammate, the carry. Specially when he or she is being focused, time it well.

You don't always have to wait for someone's hp to drop to use your ulti, use it to initiate. It gives you some damage boost from your passive and also a decoy.

Use it on your self on 1 vs 1 to give you an upperhand.

Don't use it on useless champions. If you are gonna use your ulti strictly for initiating or for added damage, choose which hero you should cast it on, usually you cast this on a carry or yourself or anyone with high auto-attack damage output.

Sometimes using it on your tank is smart... sometimes...

Most common mistake yoricks do when using the ultimate:

I have seen a few yorick use their ulti on themselves only to run away as soon as they are revived. That is useless. Once you are resurrected from the dead by your ulti, stay and try to kill and drag someone with you, you only have about 5 to 10 seconds to live.

Well that is all for now. Friendly criticisms are okay as long as there are no excessive bashing/trashing/rude comments thank you :). And again this was just done out of boredom and also to share what I know about this hero. Sloppy guide but could be a quick solution to play yorick better? maybe...